Megadrive1988
Veteran
PowerVR Series 4, with its 4 pipes and on-chip T&L or Vertex Shader(s) might have been a nice alternative to the GeForce3/GeForce4 variant, NV2A, in Xbox.
Picture of Sega's 3Dfx-based 'BlackBelt' console
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
- Start date
PowerVR Series 4, with its 4 pipes and on-chip T&L or Vertex Shader(s) might have been a nice alternative to the GeForce3/GeForce4 variant, NV2A, in Xbox.
I could be wrong but from what I recall Carmack stayed away from C++ a fair bit longer then most of the development community.
Besides, if you have the time to spend on it, you can write C++ into doing things at very low level too, while still keeping far more generality then lower level lang. can afford.
Anyway, I also like to get familiar with how exactly hw does things, but if I was working on PC as primary platform I'd be reluctant to bother with it for every bloody chip out there too.
bbot said:
At best a dual chip kyro 2 then I suppose. Power may have been about the same as a dual chip rampage(or a voodoo5 6000, which would be a bit slower), but would it have been worth it with no pixel shaders at all, and possibly not any t&l?
I never knew this....wow, Carmack writes some of hte fastest and most versatile game engines, and he doesn't even code to the metal like other developers.
John Carmack gets as low as he can get on PC.
Doom3 is the first non C engine, he wrote the Jaguar version of Doom himself and he first innovation was finding interesting ways of scrolling back in EGA (register level hacking). He also did a fair bid of pioneering ModeX for Doom PC.
He works the same as all the best people do, try various algorithms until you find one you like and then you optimize it till it bleeds.
Doom3 is the first non C engine, he wrote the Jaguar version of Doom himself and he first innovation was finding interesting ways of scrolling back in EGA (register level hacking). He also did a fair bid of pioneering ModeX for Doom PC.
He works the same as all the best people do, try various algorithms until you find one you like and then you optimize it till it bleeds.
Ah yes, I used to love sitting down with a bowl of squid jerky and a beer and get nice and intimate with a PC Engine, SFC or Saturn... Shame that deadlines, publishers, and the realities of living can sap all the fun out of that most of the time...
Meh, it's all about Lisp baby!
Actually I'd better shut up before you get on the metaprogramming soap box.. Hehe, go to the Mac...
2-3 processor designs to worry about (and only one really cool vector ISA extension to deal with), and simpler configurations to deal with... Granted unless you work at like Omnigroup or something you'll have to "serve fries with that" part-time to pay for rent.. And scores cool points with me for sticking to GL and being a NeXT fan back in the day...
archie4oz said:
There always enough time for quickie with the hardware
archie4oz said:Hehe, go to the Mac...
Everybody wants a Mac these days, just not running OS X
Lisp... what's that again? Oh right, I remember... it's a template metaprogram!Archie said:
You're just jealous I get a compiler out of the box and you'd probably have to write your own.
Well I'm good with consoles for now. But maybe in future if EA decides to support Mac, who knows what could happen...
One can always make time for that yeah. Just that it gets even better when you can take your time and do it slowly...DeanoC said:
Ahem...
Yeah but it'll generate faster, tighter code than the half-assed outa-the-box port of a BOCCE interpreter you call a compiler...
Yeah, but time for that sort of attention is usually reserved for 1st party blokes.
3rd party chaps get stuck with waiting in line for quickies... 8)DeanoC said:
you mean he was sane enough to see the commersial viability of a VGA feature the demo coders had been using for ages before him. as for the EGA panning - yeah, i think he actually took key part in inventing that feature, but don't quote me on that. gosh, that stuff dates back to the commander keen days.
but one thing can be attributed to the guy unquestionably - the famous low-granularity-perspective-correction assembly texturing routine in quake1 ...or wait! was that Abrash's?
Both Abrash I think, AFAIK xsharp was the first major user (fast filled polygons). But it was well known even before that, just nobody could think of a good use for them. It was Abrash that realized (or at least publicly wrote an article) you could chain the writes to write 4 pixels at once.darkblu said:
The point I was making was that John Carmack knows his hardware registers and he's certainly not a high level only coder. Anybody who played with Tom and Jerry can claim hard core status
(T and J are the Risc processors in Jaguar).archie4oz said:
Ggyyeesshh...! :? I dunno, it might taste good, but then I think about how squid look when they're ALIVE, and how they MOVE....!
I ate squid once, on Crete. But then it was nice and grilled, on a bed of rice and veggies n stuff!
DeanoC said:Everybody wants a Mac these days, just not running OS X
Hey, I wouldn't mind a modern 2.5GHz dual-processor Mac running OSX, but it bloody well be a version of OSX that supports more than one friggin mouse button...! Jesus, that's stone-age, no wonder they used to call it the macintoy back in the day.
Wusssss...
Not as bad as you think (doesn't even look like squid most of the time)Ummm... OS X has always supported more than one mouse button... Scrolling even works, imagine that!
Actually the stone-age comments about the one-button are for the clueless since you've always had keyboard modifiers in prolific use on Classic... If you've ever seen and old skool hardcore mac user fly on the system with one hand on the mouse, the other on the keyboard doing stuff that's just simply not possible on a 3-5 button mouse, it's pretty amazing... (actually Maya and Houdini incorporate some of those UI/input paradigms as well)...BTW, my dual 2.5 is on the way..
Anyways, just to keep this mildly on topic, some more up Simon's alley, where do you consider counting from for determining the PVR's tri throughput? Tris coming out of the TA, or the output of the ISP?
Aww, how could you not love thisGuden said:
I just had to go grab one after all your talk
Seriously they are a very delicious snack.And speaking of the live things, squids got nothing on Sea Cucumbers as far as yuck factor goes. And they are edible too - granted when I first tried them I didn't even know what it was...
I dunno, I think most people that played with register stuff for the first time would think of the idea, it's pretty straightforward(I know I did - back then it was not so uncommon to "not" know of already implemented stuff and reinvent the wheel many times over). The other matter is how many ever got a commercial products out of it, and out of those Keen was probably the first anyhow.darkblu said:
Fafalada said:
As you brought up Sea Cucumbers, can I ask a dumb question to anybody who might know?
While porting Silent Hill 2, the main creatures are called Sea Cucumber (or at least the auto translated comments say they are), the also had a enum name of SCU, so we think its there actual name but why? The actual creatures are the slimy guys that look like they are in straight jackets, why would they be called Sea Cucumbers?
Its something I've never managed to work out and it dominants my thoughts whenever sea cucumbers slip into a conversation (which to be honest, isn't very often).
The best I've come up, is that its some Japanese cultural thing that is completely missed by us silly Englanders...
(I think this may be a record for off-topic-ness but then maybe Sea Cucumber have some Dreamcast meaning as well
)
Vysez,
Too bad for you French people that sea snails are typically extremely poisonous!
(Well, so I heard anyway hehe.)
And YES Faf, I would actually try squid jerky, I'm not THAT squeamish. I just want to make sure my food won't suddenly slither off the plate and crawl back to the ocean again!
Too bad for you French people that sea snails are typically extremely poisonous!
(Well, so I heard anyway hehe.
)And YES Faf, I would actually try squid jerky, I'm not THAT squeamish. I just want to make sure my food won't suddenly slither off the plate and crawl back to the ocean again!
So, presumably, they are therefore available in expensive Japanese restaurants?Guden Oden said:Vysez,
Too bad for you French people that sea snails are typically extremely poisonous!
/me remembers (with a shudder) eating liver of anglerfish whilst in Tokyo. Bleagh. At least, I think it was anglerfish liver - it was green, had the consistency of cream cheese, and tasted utterly foul.
Guden Oden said:I just want to make sure my food won't suddenly slither off the plate and crawl back to the ocean again!
And whatcha gonna do when that squid will slither off the plate and start attacking the submarine you're onboard?
Squids are mean! Don't trust them!
edit:
Guden Oden said:Too bad for you French people that sea snails are typically extremely poisonous!
You should try some of our finest cheese, Guden... Sea Snails poison (one of the most dangerous poison on earth BTW) is nothing compared to that.